ABSTRACT
In the process of developing his concept of performance, Max Herrmann thoroughly examined the mediality, materiality, and aestheticity of performance. Yet, he mostly ignored the semioticity of performance because, in his time, it still was identified with the semioticity of the dramatic text. Theatre critics and literary scholars asserted that the meanings drawn from the text would be expressed through theatrical means in the performance and thus conveyed to the audience. According to Herrmann’s contemporaries, performativity was subordinated to expressivity in performance. The relationship between actors and spectators was considered only in so far as the actors were capable of “appropriately” expressing the “correct” meanings and communicating those to the audience. In contrast, Max Herrmann understood the bodily co-presence of actors and spectators to constitute performance. Insofar as the performance’s semioticity was derived from a literary text and evaluated accordingly, it held no interest for him.
